Ilitch owns the Yzerman call, and Detroit's plan just got blurrier
The Red Wings owner says he removed Yzerman and won't rule out a rebuild, a month after his interim GM ruled one out.
Chris Ilitch picked a strange week to start talking. Detroit beat Philadelphia 2-1 on Thursday to get to 2-3-2, and the owner used the night to say two things: he made the call to move Steve Yzerman out of the general manager's chair, and he won't rule out a rebuild.
Put those side by side and the Red Wings don't have a plan. They have an owner, an interim general manager and a pile of decisions nobody has the authority to finish.
1. The Yzerman part. When Yzerman moved to senior adviser on July 15, the framing was soft enough that you could believe he stepped away on his own. Ilitch now calls it a "difficult but necessary decision" that he made himself.
"I'm accountable for the direction of the franchise, and also for finding the right folks to lead it," he said.
Fair enough. But an owner claiming the call on a franchise icon, with "Sell the team" chants in his own building, isn't calming anything down. He's telling the room the buck stops with him, and the room is already booing.
The read: Ilitch cleared up July and fogged up everything that came after it.
2. The rebuild door. Shawn Horcoff, the interim general manager since September, said a month ago that a rebuild was "out of the question." His reasoning: "We have too many good players in that lineup."
Ilitch won't close the door Horcoff shut, and he won't set a timeline for a permanent hire, though he did say Horcoff is a candidate.
So the interim guy is auditioning for the job while the owner publicly leaves room for the opposite of his plan. That's not a front office. That's a group chat.
The read: Every general manager who calls Detroit this fall knows the man on the phone may not be the one deciding.
3. Larkin. This is where it bites. Dylan Larkin's list of approved destinations has grown from three teams to 10. Dreger has the asking price at two "A" prospects, an NHL-ready top-nine forward and a first-round pick, with no fit on the list so far. Grade it Reported.
That's a rebuild-sized ask from a team whose interim general manager says it isn't rebuilding. A buyer reads that as a seller who hasn't decided what it is.
4. Edvinsson. Simon Edvinsson is still an unsigned restricted free agent, and the Dec. 1 deadline is getting closer. LeBrun has at least 10 teams asking about him, Boston among them, while Horcoff says a trade isn't something he's considering. Grade it Rumbling: plenty of calls, no movement.
A team with a long-term plan signs its young defenseman. A team without one lets the phone keep ringing.
What the numbers say: Detroit's penalty kill is working at 69.6 percent through seven games, per NHL data. Larkin is averaging 21.3 minutes a night with three points in five games, by our count, so he's still being used like a No. 1 center by a team that's trying to move him.
Seven games is a small sample. But a kill that leaks like that is exactly how a 2-3-2 start turns into a December sell-off, whatever anyone decides to call it.
File under: Board room. Trade winds.
Ten straight seasons out of the playoffs, the longest active drought in the league, and the owner just told everyone the plan is open for discussion. The Wings don't need a rebuild debate.
They need a general manager with the authority to end one. Until Ilitch names him, Larkin and Edvinsson stay frozen, and the price on both of them only gets worse.
